Friday, April 5, 2013

Friday update: By-election polling and Liberal leadership

This week's Friday update takes a look at new by-election polling in Labrador, new forecasts for the pending provincial by-elections in Ontario, updates to the Liberal leadership endorsement rankings, and discussion of the newest national poll.

Ipsos-Reid puts Liberals first

The polling has been coming fast and furious this week, but it has also been remarkably consistent. The latest missive is from Ipsos-Reid. I'll try to give the poll a deeper look next week, but it gives the Liberals 32% to 31% for the Conservatives and 27% for the New Democrats. It is yet another poll to put the Liberals at or above 30%, the Conservatives below 32%, and the NDP at or below 27%. It makes for a very tight grouping of polls.

As a result, the Liberals now lead by the tiniest of margins in the weighted average, with 30.7% to 30.5% support. Some of the regional numbers are interesting as well: the Liberals are almost tied with the Tories in Ontario, and are now ahead by more than three points in Quebec. That Ipsos gave the Liberals 32% in the province is interesting, as prior to this survey it had mostly been Forum that was bullish on the Liberals in Quebec.

Note that the reason the newer Ipsos-Reid poll has a lower weight in the average than the Forum poll is that the model considers the Ipsos-Reid poll to be older. As it was in the field between March 28 and April 3, it has a median date of March 31, whereas Forum was just in the field on April 2.

Also note that, despite what was reported in articles by Global and Postmedia, this Ipsos-Reid poll is not a hypothetical "what-if" Trudeau poll. Ipsos-Reid did not mention Trudeau's name in the voting intentions question.

Improving Liberal fortunes in Labrador and London West, worsening ones in Windsor-Tecumseh
With all of the new polling, the by-election forecast for Labrador has been updated and it remains rough for the Conservatives. The polling in Atlantic Canada has been extremely consistent, showing the Liberals at over 40% and the Conservatives at under 20%. That means the swing is strongly in favour of the Liberals, who average a victory margin of 43.6 points when the regional swing from the last month's worth of polls is applied to the riding.

Backing that up is a poll from Forum Research for Labrador. The short of it is that it gives Yvonne Jones a 36-point lead, with 57% to 21% for Harry Borlase of the NDP and 20% for Peter Penashue of the Tories.

The numbers are also good for the Liberals in London West, as the polling picture has brightened for the Ontario Liberals in southwestern Ontario. The riding is now a Likely Liberal win, up from a Lean Liberal.

Conversely, the situation has gotten better for the New Democrats in Windsor-Tecumseh, as it is now a Strong New Democrat forecast, up from a Likely NDP win. Why the difference? Simply that there has been a drop in the number of polls in the last month in Ontario, making it more difficult to judge the volatility between polls. When that happens, the ranges tighten up and the NDP's low forecast pulls ahead of the high forecast for the Liberals.

Joyce Murray did get the nod from Peter Milliken, while Gordon Wilson (former B.C. Liberal leader) and Judi Tyabji (former B.C. MLA) improve her numbers in British Columbia. She now has 33% of the endorsement points in the province, the only one where the race between her and Justin Trudeau is competitive (at least from an endorsement stand point).

But the list of Trudeau endorsers grew even larger, with a long list of senators added and former provincial leaders David Peterson and Yvonne Jones, among others.

Overall, it meant a marginally worsening share of the endorsement points for Trudeau, who dropped below 90% on the weighted rankings (to 89.9%). He is still miles ahead of Murray and the other contestants, however, who have not been able to attract a single endorsement that is counted in the rankings (all of Martin Cauchon's and Martha Hall Findlay's points come from their self-endorsements). Only a gimmicky turnout shock would prevent Trudeau from winning the race at this point - the greatest danger he faces (and it is a small one) is that too many people will consider his victory so inevitable that they don't bother to vote. Not a bad position to be in.

Yes, I'm sure. I asked Darrell Bricker of Ipsos-Reid about it. Postmedia/Global made the mistake, but it was Ipsos's fault for the way they wrote their report.

They said "Working under the assumption that Justin Trudeau is leader of the Liberal Party of Canada..." when they actually meant "As Canadians are working under the assumption that Justin Trudeau is leader of the Liberal Party of Canada..."

When asking the voting intention question, it's my understanding that some pollsters prompt respondents with the names of the parties *and* their respective leaders, others prompt with party names only, while others don't prompt at all. Have you ever considered attempting some sort of analysis of whether these nuances seem to cause any sort of consistent differences in results? I think that could potentially be really interesting to look into.

I further wonder if there's one method of asking the question that could be deemed "better" than the others. Off the top of my head, I'm tempted to think prompting with party names only might be the best way to go because it's closest to what the voter is actually presented with at the ballot box: a list of all the parties with respective local candidates, but no mention of leaders. Then again I imagine it's only a very small proportion of voters who only make up their minds about who to vote for once they've got the ballot in front of them. Just some thoughts...

The Liberal brand isn't terribly hot right now (at least not like it used to be), but Justin Trudeau certainly is. Now imagine your typical politically disengaged survey respondent who can't name the party leaders off the top of their head on any given day. In a first survey the respondent is presented with the party names only. Conceivably, they aren't particularly stimulated by the simple mention of "Liberal", but perhaps "NDP" causes flashbacks of Jack Layton and the orange wave, so they impulsively pick the latter. In a parallel universe, the same respondent is prompted with party names AND respective leaders, including Trudeau. Conceivably, sticking Trudeau next to the Liberals would trump any excitement associated with the NDP (and Mulcair) and in this case the respondent picks the Liberals. Seems plausible, no?

"Only a gimmicky turnout shock would prevent Trudeau from winning the race at this point - the greatest danger he faces (and it is a small one) is that too many people will consider his victory so inevitable that they don't bother to vote."

While I don't disagree with this analysis, I don't think the endorsement rankings are very strong evidence for it. What share of the endorsements did Christy Clark have on the eve of the BC Liberal Leadership vote?

It's the fundraising and sign-up numbers that give better evidence of a large Trudeau lead in my books. Even then, there is uncertainty due to the question of how evenly distributed both Murray and Trudeau's sign-ups are, as well as how many people from each camp actually completed the registration process.

You're right about the former MLA (though the tweet in question was posted after this update, so I'll keep it for next week).

But I can't find an endorsement from Kent Hehr. I see that he hosted Hall Findlay for an event, but I think that was more in his capacity as the local MLA. One journalist asked him point blank if he was support Hall Findlay, but he didn't respond.

Since this former MLA is the first endorsement I have recorded in Alberta, it means MHF will get all of Alberta's points in the weighted rankings. Anyone know of any other Liberal endorsements from Alberta, either provincial or among senators?

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